Candace Robb: The Guilt of Innocents

Relief came from an unexpected quarter. Lucie’s good friend Bess Merchet, mistress of the York Tavern just beyond the apothecary, knocked on the street door and then opened it to announce herself. She entered the hall before Lucie was on her feet. Her ample curves and the pale red hair that escaped her cap belied her age. She breathed life into a room merely by entering it.

‘Sit, my friend,’ Bess said as she hugged Lucie, always the hostess even in another’s house. The ribbons on her cap quivered as she glanced around the room. ‘Where are your men?’

‘Owen and Jasper are not yet home,’ said Lucie. ‘Edric is in the shop.’

‘Pity.’ Bess eased herself down across from Alisoun. To Lucie, at the head of the table, she said, ‘Your new apprentice is a comely lad.’

Lucie laughed. ‘Trust you to notice, Bess.’

‘Edric is no lad,’ Alisoun blurted. ‘He’s eighteen.’

Her outburst and its accompanying deep blush surprised Lucie. Edric had not seemed to her a young man who would catch a young woman’s interest. But considering him now, she realised he was comely in a delicate way, though part of that impression might be his shy demeanour. Still, she’d thought Alisoun preferred Jasper.

Bess leaned forward on her strong forearms to peer at what Alisoun was doing. ‘I see you are practising your letters. What a fortunate day it was for you when you joined this household, eh? And when Nicholas Ferriby opened his school. Let us pray that the dean and chancellor hear nothing of your grammar master’s peculiar ideas about the bible being translated into the common language or, even worse, how unacceptably wealthy the canons of York Minster are.’

So these were his heretical ideas. He sounded like a follower of John Wycliff, an English priest both famous and infamous. Lucie’s stomach burned, and she took a slow, deep breath for the baby. With the dean and chapter already feeling threatened by the laity they would certainly pounce on the heretical idea of lay people bypassing their priests by reading and interpreting the bible for themselves.

‘Master Nicholas’s ideas are tavern talk?’ Alisoun asked in amazement.

‘On dull evenings,’ Bess said with a wink. ‘But tonight people have something of more substance on their minds — or less, depending on your taste. Have you heard that Drogo the steersman almost drowned today?’

‘Who is he?’ Lucie asked.

‘He’s a pilot on the Ouse?’ Alisoun asked. ‘I should think they were often nearly drowned.’

‘That is so.’ Bess crossed her arms, relaxing. ‘But not from the barges anchored at the Abbey Staithe, and not because one of the scholars of St Peter’s School pushed him overboard.’ She grinned at the surprise in both her listeners’ eyes. ‘Let us pray that he lives, or Captain Archer will be sent out to find the lad who pushed him in.’

‘I pray Jasper was not among them,’ Lucie said, worried because he was not yet home, though she could not imagine him doing such a thing. But neither could she imagine his fellows pushing a man overboard, and said so.

‘Ay, but this steersman had kept a scrip one of the scholars lost in their last skirmish onboard the barges,’ said Bess.

‘Jasper told me about that,’ said Alisoun. ‘Hubert de Weston. He’s a charity student at St Peter’s this year. His father was in a siege in France — all of our countrymen died there. The Spanish devils got them. Master Nicholas told us about it.’

‘La Rochelle?’ Bess asked.

Alisoun nodded. ‘Jasper said that Hubert was very upset when he lost the scrip.’

Lucie vaguely remembered hearing something about the incident from Jasper. ‘It sounds as if the lad can ill afford a loss like that. But why didn’t the boys send Master John to speak to the man?’

‘Why would they think he’d still have the scrip?’ Bess asked. ‘Sounds to me as if they just wanted to punish him, and it went much further than they’d intended.’

‘You keep saying “they”,’ said Lucie. ‘So it was not Hubert who pushed the man into the river?’

Bess hesitated, frowning as she considered all she had heard. ‘Everyone speaks as if the lad wasn’t there.’

‘What will they do to the boys?’ Alisoun asked.

‘I don’t know,’ said Lucie, distracted by her concern. ‘Owen might know what — ’ She paused, hearing the street door.

Jasper stepped into the hall, red-faced from the cold outdoors. He took in the occupants of the room and then took a step backwards as if wanting to retreat. Lucie could imagine his discomfort with all their eager eyes fastened on him, and him most likely tired and hungry.

‘You’re just the man we need,’ Bess said. ‘Come, sit beside me.’ She patted the bench on which she sat.

Jasper shuffled towards the table with a glance towards Lucie that appealed for help.

‘Are you hungry?’ she asked. ‘Kate is feeding the little ones and I’m sure she’ll give you something. You’ve only to go ask her.’

But Bess was not to be cheated of hearing an account of the excitement from a potential witness. ‘Alisoun, why don’t you see to some food for Jasper while he rests his growing bones beside me?’

Alisoun grudgingly pushed herself away from the table and rose.

At that moment, Edric stepped into the hall through the garden door. Throwing a smile his way, Alisoun stepped quite cheerfully towards the doorway in which he stood, brushing against him as she slipped out to the kitchen.

Edric, for his part, did not turn to watch Alisoun depart, but was already bobbing his head in greeting to Lucie, Bess, and Jasper.

‘There’s much talk of someone almost drowning,’ he said with excited delight as he took the seat Alisoun had vacated. ‘Do you think Captain Archer will be the one to catch the guilty one?’

‘I pray that he isn’t,’ said Lucie. She wanted the baby to be welcomed by both its parents. ‘Was the shop busy this afternoon?’

‘Yes,’ said Edric. ‘The weather has folk sniffing and coughing, and their bones aching from the damp cold. I shut the shop to come eat something, but I promised several folk they might return later for their physicks. Why don’t you want Captain Archer to search for the one who pushed the pilot, Mistress?’

‘Because it’s dangerous work and keeps him away from home,’ Jasper snapped.

Edric blushed. ‘Oh. Of course.’

Bess glanced towards Lucie, lifting her eyebrows in curiosity. Lucie noticed, but did not meet her friend’s eyes, not wanting to irk either of her apprentices. Jasper had appeared so glad of Edric’s presence at first, but gradually he’d begun to behave as if he resented him, and that resentment seemed to have grown stronger and stronger, for no cause apparent to Lucie. Edric worked hard and deferred to Jasper’s long experience in the shop while also sharing the things he had learned from his former master. Now she wondered whether Alisoun was the thorn. That would be a great pity, for there was no remedying that sort of rivalry.

Still eyeing Edric, Jasper said, ‘You would not be smiling had you seen the man pulled from the water.’

‘Were you there?’ Edric’s eyes were alight.

Lucie suspected that he had no idea how Jasper felt about him.

‘Yes.’ Jasper turned to Lucie. ‘The captain has gone to the abbey infirmary to see the man’s wounds.’

Lucie inwardly groaned — Owen was involved.

‘Wounds?’ Bess murmured. ‘I hadn’t heard of wounds.’

‘Do tell us what you saw, Jasper,’ said Edric.

Jasper loudly sighed as he raked his straight, flaxen hair from his forehead. ‘There was a crowd, and I saw little. I only heard that Drogo had gone into the river. I did not see him until he was pulled out.’